


If You've Got To

by costumejail



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Misgendering, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Jet Star (Danger Days), POV Multiple, Post-Traffic Report (Song), Violence, and pre-traffic report, in ONE line, ive done it from every other perspective why not this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/costumejail/pseuds/costumejail
Summary: Bad news from the zones, tumbleweeds...
Relationships: Jet Star & Kobra Kid (Danger Days)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings are pretty much what's in the tags but there's specifically some knife violence so I thought I'd warn for that!

“Outta gas,” concluded Jet. They kicked the bike’s tire and sat back on the sand with a heavy sigh. “Sorry, Kobes.”

“‘S fine. I’ll call Pois, tell him we’ll be late.”

“Fuck, they’ll love that.”

Kobra flipped his helmet’s visor up to shoot a tired grin at Jet. They rolled their eyes in response, then leaned back on their elbows and surveyed the desert around them. Nothing moved, there wasn’t even a breeze.

“Party Poison, Kobra Kid, Party Poison.” 

Kobra frowned at the radio. It was turned on, but for some reason, his sibling wasn’t responding.

“Pois, come in.”

“Maybe he’s asleep,” suggested Jet. “Call Cherri.”

“Sun’s up,” Kobra retorted. “Pois wouldn’t be asleep and Cherri better be.”

“Call Ghoul, then.”

The sun beat down on the pair of joys while Kobra fiddled with the radio’s dials and swore.

“Can’t even get wkil, must be a dead zone.”

“Shiny.” Jet tipped their head back, stretching out their neck. “How far are we from a Dead Peg?”

“We’re in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere, Jet.”

“Witch, okay, I think I’ve got a bottle of water in the bike, wanna grab it so we don’t die while we walk?”

“Yeah, guess so.”

Kobra rolled back to his feet and began digging through the bags bolted to the side of Jet’s bike. Again, Jet surveyed the desert around them, trying to figure out which direction the nearest service station would be. A flash on the horizon caught their attention and they shot upright, squinting against the glare.

“Kobes!” Jet warned. “Look alive!”

The words hadn’t fully left their lips before they tackled Kobra into the bike, narrowly saving him from a plasma blast that would have hit him squarely in the back. The two joys tumbled to the ground in a cloud of dust, emerging with guns drawn and helmets in place. Kobra crouched behind Jet as they took shots at the approaching vehicles, hurriedly strapping his power glove on. The vehicles kicked up dust as they accelerated toward the pair. 

“What’s the damage?” Kobra asked urgently. He powered up the glove and flexed his hand, feeling it buzz in response.

“Squad car, pair of bikes,” assessed Jet. “Car looks full, Exterminator and six dracs?”

“They’ve been sending out pairs lately.” Kobra stood, pulled his gun, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jet as he began to fire. “Five dracs, two ‘terminators.”

“Did you call Pois?”

“Not yet.”

“Fuck.”

Jet finally got a hit on one of the bikes in the same second that Kobra shot out one of the car’s front tires. The drac flipped over its handlebars while the car skidded to a halt a handful of yards away from Jet and Kobra. The doors opened, two Exterminators and three draculoids pouring out onto the sand. Kobra didn’t have the time to fire a triumphant glance Jet’s way, though, as the fourth remaining drac dismounted its bike and immediately began firing at him. He holstered his gun and charged forward, startling the drac to the point that it stopped firing for long enough to allow Kobra to get his gloved hand around its neck and snap it with a sick crack. Kobra dropped the body and pivoted, assessing the situation again.

Two down, Jet took a slow breath and shot one drac through the neck, then another. The Exterminators had hardly moved, seemingly content to lounge against the hood of their blinding white car, visors up, and watch the tussle unfold. Jet spun quickly, looking for the last drac, and only then did the Exterminators slide into action. One of them, the woman, snapped her visor down then stalked toward Kobra and the last drac. 

They were grappling in the sand or had been until Kobra slipped a knife from inside his boot and plunged it through the eye socket of the drac’s mask. The drac collapsed, still clutching at Kobra’s neck and throwing him off balance. Kobra hadn’t recovered before the Exterminator gripped the back of his helmet and ripped it off. He let out a cry, bringing his hands up to cover his eyes against the sudden harsh sunlight. 

Jet was frozen, unable to move, to think, to even shout as the Exterminator dragged Kobra to his feet and unearthed a knife to hold against his throat. They were brought back to reality by the sound of a ray gun going off and a blinding shock of pain slamming into their shoulder. Jet’s vision went white for a second, flashing back just in time to feel the Exterminator at their back wrap an arm around their throat, grip the base of their helmet, and pull. Jet’s helmet hit the ground with a deafening crunch. They panted as the Exterminator tightened his arm around their neck, wrenching their head back to an impossible angle and straining the blast wound already digging its way through their shoulder. 

Ten feet away, the Kobra Kid wasn’t daring to move. Every breath brought the knife’s edge closer to cutting into the thin skin of his throat, and he was keenly aware of the fact that this once, he might not be able to make it out. Still, his grip on his ray gun was steady when he raised it, aiming just over Jet Star’s shoulder at the dark visor of the Exterminator that had them in his clutches. 

Jet mirrored the action, though their hand shook as they levelled the barrel of their gun at the enemy. 

Unnoticed by any of the combatants, a raven landed on Jet’s toppled bike, surveying the still scene with beady eyes.

“What now, boys?” Kobra’s Exterminator taunted. She roughly yanked at Kobra’s hair, opening a thin line across his throat as he jerked in her grip. “Call for backup? Think the rest of your crew would get here before your bodies cooled?”

“I think fuck you,” gritted Kobra. He drove his elbow back into the Exterminator’s ribs. 

She barely flinched. 

“Fine then,” snapped the other Exterminator. “Your choice.”

He pulled the trigger. 

The blast was muffled with the barrel of his ray gun jammed into Jet’s spine, but their scream rang out clearly. They dropped to their knees, giving Kobra a clear angle at the Exterminator. He fell backwards, helmet melting from the heat of the three shots that all found their mark. 

On the ground, Jet groaned. 

Kobra’s exterminator laughed. A cold sound. A razor blade down his spine. A knife blade through his throat. 

For a moment, the blood wasn’t visible. It blended with the worn leather of Kobra’s jacket before spilling, hot and bright onto the sand where he’d fallen like a puppet with its strings cut. It spread across the sand, soaking crimson into the dust, eating the ground around Kobra and painting it a dark, uniform red. 

Primly, the exterminator stepped back. She wiped her blade off on her sleeve and tucked it into a sheath. She turned to leave, abandoning the bodies where they lay. 

Or so she thought. 

Jet’s first blast missed. It singed the exterminator’s hair and she pivoted instantly, a smile carving across her face as she pulled her gun from her hip. A sharp retort was on her lips, but it snapped out of existence at the sight of Jet, kneeling in the dust, trembling like a leaf, fire in their eyes. 

By now the spread of Kobra’s blood had stopped growing, stretching from Jet’s knees to the Exterminator’s boots where they stared each other down. 

Two shots, one sound, they found their marks at the same time. Jet’s hit the exterminator square between her eyes. Hers hit them in the stomach, center mass, crackling through soft tissue and singeing organs in a split second of white-hot pain. The smell of cooked meat mingled with the iron tang of blood already on the air, both whisked away by a breeze in the next moment. 

The raven plucked a single feather from its wings. It flew off without a sound.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasn't sure if I was gonna add an aftermath but [@piratepen](piratepen.tumblr.com) asked so...   
> Kobra POV

You’re sticky. You’re hot and sticky and when you roll to sit up all the skin of your neck pulls awkwardly so you freeze. 

Moving slowly, you put a hand at your throat and it comes away dry. But you know the feel of dried blood like you know the groan that sounds ten feet behind you. 

Jet Star is on their front at first. But they rise and you catch a glimpse of burned shirt and raw flesh before they collapse down again and you rush over. Their back looks bad, a crater digging in next to their spine and you don’t know how that didn’t hit anything vital. Or how the two blast wounds you reveal on their front when you roll them over didn’t, either. 

They groan again, raise a hand to your face and you grab their shaky hand with your bloodstained one. 

There’s no words. You don’t even know what happened, much less what to say. You wrack your brain as you gather Jet into your arms and all that’s coming up is a vague memory of running out of gas and seeing a car on the horizon. It fits with the bodies scattered around you, two Exterminators and a handful of Dracs. But they’re all dead, the smell worse than the time Ghoul’s PowerPup was all mouldy and he insisted on showing you. 

You must have won. Right? If they’re dead and you’re not. Are you? You wrap your fingers around your wrist for a minute and yep, there’s a pulse. So you won. 

Not that it feels much like it as Jet trembles in your arms, clutching for you and breathing fast. 

“Shh, shh,” is all you can mumble while they cry. 

Tear tracks cut through the dust on Jet’s features and you wipe them away one-handedly, smearing blood over their cheek as it comes off your own hand. You don’t want to know who’s blood it is. 

“Kobes,” they choke out. “Kobes, you—“

“Shh,” you repeat, words coming back to you now. “I got you.”

It seems woefully inadequate for whatever it is that Jet can’t verbalize. They bury their face in your shoulder, hair catching on the mess that’s all over you. You hold them as tight as you dare with the pits burned into their torso and gradually they quiet. 

That mindless sense of self-preservation you have kicked in sometime between regaining your voice and Jet’s tears drying on your shirt. While they sniffle you get them sitting upright and poke at their wounds. As soon as you touch the first one, they gasp and you freeze. The second you pull back their eyes zero in on your throat and while they don’t cry out, one shaky hand rises to their mouth as the other traces your collarbone. 

“Tell me later,” your grit through clenched teeth. “You need first aid.”

Dropping their hand, they nod. It takes a minute to extricate yourself from them, and your head spins when you stand, but you manage to make it to Jet’s bike, lying on its side in the dirt and find your radio, static crackling out of the speaker. Without your mind’s approval, your hands spin the dial and press the talk button. 

“Kobra Kid to Cherri Cola.”

You’re not religious, but you pray to the Witch that Cherri will pick up. She’s listening, apparently, because Cherri’s voice crackles out of the radio and his words, “Go ahead, love,” are music to your ears. 

“Do you have your truck? Jet and I got—” varying explanations chase through your mind, “—caught out on Guano. We need a ride.”

“I’ll be there soon. Keep running.”

“Keep running.”

With that done, you set the radio down and return to Jet. They seem steadier, carefully avoiding looking at your neck but they don’t shake as they reach for you. When they pull you into their lap, they’re warm and steady and you take half a second to make sure you aren’t going to put your face in the wound on their shoulder before you’re curled up and shaking in their arms. 

Now it’s their turn to shush you. Your own words echoed back in your ears. 

“Shh, I got you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Before you get mad at me, they do walk away from this in my canon and I might write a follow-up for that but. Teehee.  
> Thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a comment or come check out my [tumblr!](sleevesareforlosers.tumblr.com)


End file.
